


Is There A Place More Lonely (Than I Feel Within)?

by EleanoraWrites



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) Is Not Okay, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Orphan Keith (Voltron), POV Keith (Voltron), kangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EleanoraWrites/pseuds/EleanoraWrites
Summary: A vent one-shot I wrote during my last meltdown. From Keith's POV, he feels alone and unimportant to the team.I apologise for the angst.PS: title from Within Temptation's song "Caged"
Comments: 22
Kudos: 68





	Is There A Place More Lonely (Than I Feel Within)?

Keith throws the phone to his bed, watches it bounce on the mattress and fall to the ground, screen down and by the noise it makes, he knows it cracked.

But he doesn't care.

He's too hurt to care about a damn phone. His heart hurts, his eyes leak tears that feel heavy and salty, his breath is not coming out, the lump too tight on his throat, choking him with raggedy pants.

The pain is just too much.

All the worthlessness, the burdensome, the deep and slashing feeling that he could just disappear and no-one would notice, or care, all comes crashing down inside his head like thunder rumbling on an ocean tempest.

He bumps his head against the wall and leans against it, slowly and clumsily falling down as his sobs grow louder. Cradling his knees, he let's the pain consume him in a wail, a _loud_ wail.

So, this is what it feels like to have a meltdown in space? It's not different from all those breakdowns he had back on Earth. The only difference is the stab in this organ of his that pumps blood through his veins.

He feels so lost, alone with this agonising nausea of being unworthy, excluded from the nucleus of people he thought might actually cared for him. Their proclaims of fondness are just mere whispers now lost in his memories. Their words empty for their actions never once showed Keith the true depths of their devotion towards him.

But why was he feeling like this? He should be used to be alone, used to this never-ending pit of self-loathing where he rejects company for people always abandon him in the end.

This isn't new to him; this is a routine for him.

The constant push and pull of the darkness, the bittersweet lullaby it sings to him with that siren's voice beckoning him to its grasp. Keith is all too familiar with this sinister lover of his, the one he calls _loneliness_.

After all, he didn't have anyone while growing up, having being alone since he was a child to an uncared adolescence everyone found problematic.

So why now? Why this sudden projection of hurt that feels like acid coursing through his veins? Why this pang in his chest whenever he remembers the good times, when all seemed perfect and _he_ a part of it?

Is it because he dared to care for them? Allowed them to penetrate the thorned walls of his heart and nestle there so freely? Opened up to them, believing he was one of them until they've realised just how broken he truly is?

And why did he feel so invisible now?

If Keith were to be honest, all he wants is for someone to see beyond the mask he wears, to catch on the little and subtle cracks and glimpse the mess within. Wishes for someone to genuinely reach out for him, the true, undeniable proof that they _do_ care for him. Not through words that one can cross behind their backs. But with real actions that speak louder than them. 

Keith isn't stupid. He sees how everyone has small and private jokes between them, a secret they won't share with him and how they rush up to worry about each other. All but him. He's the neglected one, the one forsaken in the shadows for he's a loner.

Maybe he doesn't want to be a loner anymore. Maybe he wants to taste the flavour of being loved for once.

He once believed he was loved. He remembers holding that feeling with all his might until it slipped through his fingers and shattered to the ground just like his phone. Left to rot, curled up in a corner with tears smudged on his face, darkness his only clothes and loneliness his only friend. That's when it all started, the messed up ghost of Keith Kogane.

So _why_ was he stupid enough to believe _they_ would genuinely care for him? Love him? _Why?_

He knows why.

He had longed to feel accepted, included, perhaps whole and maybe, just _maybe_ , by feeling like he was part of something great, he would be able to mend the broken pieces of himself.

But the fragments can no longer be glued back together. He's a mess, a mess that no-one can seem to ever truly care and love.

Like always, he's on his own while everyone has someone to hold their hand.

Wiping his tears, Keith stands from the ground and slowly approaches his phone. His hands are shaking, his chest hurting so much it feels like hot knives are cutting him open, exposing his black and rotten heart for the whole world to see.

As he imagined, the screen is cracked though it's still possible to see his wallpaper, a picture of the Paladins taken by Coran after a victory. And he finds it curious, almost ironic, that he never once noticed before that he stood to the side of the pic, almost lost in the shadows of his fellow Paladins. They shine bright like the sun while he's the solemn and gloom moon, alone, abandoned, cold, empty and without any light to illuminate his way.

He swipes through his messages next. He doesn't have that many; only a couple of them and all of them have been sent weeks, _months_ ago by him.

He deletes them all. Erases any trace of ever once caring because it makes him feel weak, stupid and pathetic. Why keep the remembrance of something he never got in return despite his tries?

Keith looks around the room and finds a backpack he got on an alien fair. He doesn't have that many belongings with him so he just shoves everything inside and grabs his jacket, leaving the broken phone behind with the simple text: _goodbye_. Just in case.

He then stands in the middle of the room, conflicted. He wants to believe that in the few seconds before he makes a decision, the universe, fate, destiny, whatever mumbo-jumbo controls his life, will intervene and slap him in the face with all the wrongness of his thoughts. He wants to believe it so hard.

He fills his lungs multiple times, let's the air out in a shaky exhale and closes his hands in fists and waits a few more seconds.

Whatever supreme energy rules above their lives, it disappoints him.

No-one comes. No-one texts him. No-one stops him.

Keith opens the door and leaves. Through the dim corridors, each step remind him that he's alone, that he was never important or a priority to anyone and if he disappeared, no-one would even notice.

So he does exactly that; he disappears in the middle of the night with his heart completely torn apart with the longing to be stopped, to be proven that he's noticed, loved, cared for. But the masochist part of him, the one whose screams deafens him, the one that rules supreme above everything else knows the real truth.

And the moment the engine picks up and the ship vibrates under his seat, the moment the hangar doors are open and the stars twinkle outside like a lighthouse that calls him home, extended in that vast unknown universe, he knows there's no turning back.

And he knows no-one is going after him.


End file.
